10 Reasons These Democrats Oppose the Internet Sales Tax

The Senate is moving closer to passing an Internet sales tax law, known as the Marketplace Fairness Act, despite rising opposition that includes Democratic Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Max Baucus (D-MT).

Here are 10 reasons for opposing an Internet sales tax, as the Senators state them in the video above:

1. It will hobble the Internet economy and constrain online commerce.

This will subject almost everything sold on the Internet to taxation, opening the door to harm consumers’ already tight budgets.

2. It forces small businesses to jump through new bureaucratic hoops.

Every time anyone buys something on the Internet, businesses will have to figure out where the purchasers are from and charge them the appropriate tax.

3. The bill erodes state sovereignty.

Four states, including Wyden’s Oregon and Baucus’s Montana, have chosen not to have sales taxes. This bill will require businesses in those states to collect sales tax even though they chose to live in a state without sales tax.

4. It is full of unintended consequences.

Many small business owners will have to lay off employees or significantly restructure their companies at great expense.

5. It will take the Internet down a dark path.

Internet-based firms, which do not consume the amount of local services as physical stores that require access to everything from roads to plumbing, will face massive new costs.

6. It forces small businesses to become tax collectors for other states.

A business in New Hampshire, a state without sales tax, could be commandeered by a state like California into collecting taxes for a government thousands of miles away.

7. It unleashes all the nation’s tax collectors on small businesses.

If a business in Texas is suspected of not complying with sales tax collection in New York, that business could face a paralyzing audit. Each state with a sales tax could potentially audit the same business, opening the door to upwards of 46 audits per year for an Internet business.

8. How does this bill create jobs? It doesn’t.

9. It violates the “do no harm” principle.

It harms both small Internet businesses and consumers who purchase products online.

10. It forces businesses to track thousands of different tax codes.

There are between 7,500 and 9,600 different tax jurisdiction in the United States, and businesses will have to understand and comply with all of them.

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